BACHanalia turns classics by Bach, Prokofiev and Manuel de
Falla into briskly swinging jazz featuring Denise Donatelli, Terell Stafford,
Joe La Barbera and Bob Sheppard
"Bravo, Bill Cunliffe! You successfully blend your love
for the classical world with everything else you embrace. The result is a
collection of colors that draw me in from the downbeat to the last
fermata." - John Clayton
"Bill Cunliffe is an incredible pianist and unique big
band composer/arranger. He combines varied elements in a way that gives his
music a sound and feel all its own.Š He is one of the main voices in the big
band genre today." - Bob Mintzer
When composer Gunther Schuller began hybridizing jazz and
classical music 60 years ago, he famously coined the term "Third
Stream" to describe the results. In 2010, pianist, composer and
Grammy-winning arranger Bill Cunliffe wrote a Grammy-nominated concerto for
trumpet and orchestra that put his own twist on the merger, calling it fourth
streamŠLa Banda. Now, with his newest album, BACHanalia, Cunliffe boldly
crosses the streams, mashing together classical repertoire and big band jazz
with swinging abandon and irreverent glee.
BACHanalia, released June 2 on Cunliffe's own Metre Records
label, obviously tips its hat to a towering figure in the history of music,
Johann Sebastian Bach. But it also suggests that audiences are in for a musical
bacchanal, an evening of merrymaking and revelry (level of debauchery left to
the listener's discretion) that would be temperamentally suited to Cunliffe's
raucous, gleam-in-the-eye style. The arrangements spotlight the pianist's gift
for transforming a wide range of material into rollicking charts that are as
bracingly fun to listen to as they are packed with creative ideas and sparkling
wit - all skills learned through working with such legends as Buddy Rich, Frank
Sinatra, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard and James Moody.
"I was always a wannabe classical pianist," says
Cunliffe, modestly downplaying the years of classical training that preceded
his college-age immersion in jazz, inspired by hearing Oscar Peterson for the
first time. "These days, stylistic differences aren't viewed in quite the
same way they used to be. Big band jazz is more intricately written, so it's
moving toward European music; and modern classical music uses more
indeterminacy, like jazz. And players now can do everything."
Taking a classic big band approach to such revered classical
masters as Bach, Sergei Prokofiev and Manuel de Falla, an arranger could get
weighed down shouldering the burden of two immense traditions. But Cunliffe's
approach is never less than buoyant, juggling those traditions with agile
spontaneity and a luxuriant sonic palette. The album, which commingles those
reimagined classical pieces with jazz standards and a Latin-tinged original
composition, is made even more compelling by the invigorating musicianship of a
stellar large ensemble that teams virtuosic L.A. veterans with enthusiastic and
skilled younger players, striking an ideal balance of technical excellence and
infectious energy.
In addition, Cunliffe invites special guests to enliven the
proceedings: Three-time Grammy nominee Denise Donatelli adds evocative wordless
vocals to several tracks as well as a seductive interpretation of a Cole Porter
classic; trumpeter Terell Stafford, who has played with the bandleader in the
Clayton Brothers band and taught alongside him at Philadelphia's Temple
University, takes a breathtakingly vulnerable solo turn on "Blame It On My
Youth"; saxophonist Bob Sheppard offers a thrilling soprano workout on
Cunliffe's "Afluencia"; and the incomparable drummer Joe La Barbera
anchors the band throughout with the exhilarating propulsion that Cunliffe
insists is central to any music he makes.
"It's got to swing," he states simply. "That
rhythmic engine is so important. It brings people together. The structures of
classical music lend themselves extremely well to large group jazz
improvisation, but you've got to find rhythms that are readily translatable.
Bach has always had that pulse. The Russian stuff - Shostakovich, Prokofiev -
always feels like bebop to me."
The sound of La Barbera's brushes opens the album, setting
the gentle but upbeat tone for "Sleepers Wake." Cunliffe's take on
the beloved Bach cantata lets Donatelli's glowing vocalise carry the melody,
joined at times by sax, guitar, trumpet, or Cunliffe's piano. A similar setting
is given to the Baroque melodic twists and turns of "Solfeggietto,"
by the great composer's son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Donatelli's voice blends
into the surging swells of Falla's "The Three-Cornered Hat," which
Cunliffe originally arranged at the behest of legendary "Tonight
Show" bandleader Doc Severinsen.
An orchestral din leads into the sultry Cuban accents of
Cunliffe's own "Afluencia," originally written for and recorded by
his Latin band, Imaginación. Sheppard reprises his soloist role from the
group's self-titled 2005 recording. Besides that piece, the album deviates from
the classical theme on the overcast version of "Blame It On My Youth"
and, to close, "I've Got You Under My Skin."
The rich, complex harmonies of Prokofiev's Third Piano
Concerto caught Cunliffe's ear from the first time he heard the piece. Here he
transforms it into a lively samba highlighted by his own adventurous solo as
well as a hypnotic run by saxophonist Rob Lockart, a former Eastman School of
Music classmate. The final classically inspired piece is "Goldberg
Contraption," which uses Glenn Gould's acclaimed recordings of Bach's
Goldberg Variations as a touchstone before veering off in some wild and
eclectic directions. The title pays winking homage to cartoonist Rube Goldberg,
whose whimsical devices went to ridiculous extremes to achieve simple goals,
using a hodgepodge of found items. Cunliffe approached the composition
similarly, patchworking a parodic fugue with New Orleans brass and simmering
bebop, with the tongues that aren't playing instruments planted firmly in
cheeks.
"I think music should be, among other things,
funny," Cunliffe says. "I think that musicians - and people in
general - who don't laugh at themselves are missing the boat." More often,
though, the fun of Cunliffe's music comes from the joy of the players and from
the pianist himself, who exults in recomposing his pieces on the bandstand.
"I love being able to conduct the ensemble and break things apart at
times. It's never the same twice."
